EUCLIPSE First Period Report

Compositing methods
- Climatology of Midlatitude Storminess, allowing to composite cloud properties in the
area of influence of midlatitude storms
http://gcss-dime.giss.nasa.gov/mcms/mcms.html
− Tropical El Niño Southern Oscillation Anomaly Database:
http://gcss-dime.giss.nasa.gov/ARRA/arra.html
It must be noted here that the evaluation toolkit will be continuously updated during
the lifetime of the project, as corrections to the existing methods will be applied and
new methods will be created.
WP1.3. Planning, Organization, and Archival of ESM simulations
EUCLIPSE ESMs have been performing a hierarchy of experiments, in particular those
proposed by CFMIP-2 as part of the CMIP-5 coordinated experiments. The initial suite
of EUCLIPSE climate experiments was performed in the context of WP1. Models are
been run with atmosphere-only configurations and with prescribed Sea Surface
Temperature (SST) patterns. The experiments include: a) Control AMIP simulations
using interannually varying observed SSTs, b) ‘Hansen’ CO2 forcing experiments with
SSTs from the control run and 4xCO2, c) SST perturbation experiments using a
pattern based on a composite of CMIP3 AOGCM CO2 quadrupling experiments, d)
uniform +4K SST perturbations e) Aqua-planet experiments using an idealised zonal
mean climatology for the control, with 4xCO2 and uniform +4K perturbation
experiments. In addition to those runs that are the focus of the CFMIP and EUCLIPSE
programs, WP1 participants coordinated and monitored the progress of the rest of the
CMIP-5 experiments performed by the participating modelling groups.
Additional diagnostics have been implemented within EUCLIPSE ESM model runs. One
primary set of such diagnostics is the output from the COSP simulator. The set of
simulator output variables for short periods (1-3 years) includes a lightweight set of
basic simulator diagnostics, but in addition requires joint height-reflectivity
distribution of CloudSat radar outputs, joint height-lidar scattering ratio distribution of
lidar outputs, as well as cloud frequency of occurrence as seen by CALIPSO but not
CloudSat, required for studies making combined use of CloudSat/CALIPSO simulator
output.
For a 1-year period of the AMIP control experiment, 3-hourly global instantaneous
outputs are produced. These experiments will allow the process modelling groups in
WP3 to examine the representation of cloud processes by GCMs in the current climate
in any climate regime or meteorological situations without imposing a priori
geographical constraints. In addition, for several years of the AMIP control run, 3hourly
outputs are produced along a few transects (e.g. GCSS/WGNE-Pacific Crosssection
Intercomparison - GPCI, VOCALS) or locations for which a large number of
observations will be available (satellite data for GPCI, field campaign for VOCALS,
long-time series of ground-based observations for ARM or CloudNet instrumented
sites).
WP1 has been closely monitoring the progress of both CFMIP-specific and CMIP-5 runs
through regular submissions of progress reports by the different partners. As a result,
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